Display caption

Like many of Chagall's prints from the early 1920s 'The Vision' is based on an earlier work which dates from 1917. After Chagall moved to Paris in 1923 he created new versions of many of the works he had made in Russia. 'The Vision' depicts the young painter at his easel being visited by an angel. Chagall's paintings were often inspired by his dreams, and the winged angel is only one of many fabulous beings which people his compostions. Chagall recognised that through his art he could escape into his imagination. He later said that painting 'appeared to me like a window through which I could fly away toward another world.'

The etching was made in Paris in 1924-5 and its composition resembles that of a painting made in Russia in 1917-18. This print is an unnumbered impression of the third, final state which was published in an edition of 100, numbered from '1/100' to '100/100'. Chagall told the compiler that he hand-coloured several prints, each differently; this one was coloured for Lady Clerk about 1937. The etching was printed by Louis Fort.

Chagall made a further etching of this theme in 1965, but with a rather different composition, which is catalogued by Kornfeld (No.122) as 'Die Erscheinung. II' (The Vision II).

Published in:
Ronald Alley, Catalogue of the Tate Gallery's Collection of Modern Art other than Works by British Artists, Tate Gallery and Sotheby Parke-Bernet, London 1981, pp.111-12, reproduced p.111